Fun as in shooting hoops in the office (as above), or literally shooting others as demonstrated by our Android developer Reynard (below). You won't want to disagree with him.

Who uses ShowNearby?
Enough about people in ShowNearby, let's talk about people who use ShowNearby.

We often get questions from our friends and business partners which go along the lines of “Who are your users?”

A myriad of experiences and imaginings flock into our minds as we come with the answer.

Facts at a glance

Well, there are over 350,000 ShowNearby users in Singapore as of January 2011. A large portion of our users fall within the age range of 18-35.

Our users on Android, iPhone and BlackBerry mirror the typical demographies that use the devices. We are so popular on iPhone that we were #1 for a while in December - a very notable achievement which got our developer cartwheeling across the office in glee.

Moving on to the juicier details, we also receive information on the search habits of users, which we use for profile construction. Hey, having statistics adds spine to that guess-timation.

We have over 34 million searches in the last 3 months. And they say a lot of interesting things about our dear users in Singapore.

Singaporean mobile search trends

Our records show that the typical Singaporean (ShowNearby user) in December 2010 is always on the go. Almost 40% of our searches are related to transportation, with “Bus Stop”, "Carpark", "Petrol Station", "ERP" and "Bus Interchange" all figuring in the top 25 most frequently searched keywords.

The smart phone is truly a handy device to have when you're on the go. But please do not use it while you are driving, k?

Another popular search by Singaporeans is food, which amounts to 11% of all searches. We obviously love our restaurants (#3), fast food (#4) and cafes (#11). We love to eat! Nom nom nom…

ShowNearby definitely gets you through the day, just like coffee! And we have “Starbucks” and “Coffee Bean” at #30 and #39 respectively.

Some say too much coffee can be bad for your teeth, so that could (in our wildest imagination) be indicative of the popularity of “Dental Clinic” searches at #25… Nah! We’re probably all just health-conscious and always ready to take care of our dental hygiene, right? By the way, “Hospital” and “Clinic” respectively rank #8 and #18.

The next popular search by Singaporeans comprises 10% of all searches in the month of December. Ranked #2 is ATM. Talk about always being in need of (drawing) money! Searches for AXS (#5) are also pretty hot. “Money Changer” figures at #32 and the hardworking folks at ShowNearby are currently developing this as a category.

Singaporeans love to have a great time too. From our search results, there is keen interest in supermarkets (#12), movie theatres (#15), Singapore Pools (#17, hmmmmm) and shopping centres (#24).

Moving forward
We could share other information such as searches for Orchard (#58) because we know it’s a popular area to hang around, so are Serangoon (#71), Jurong (#74), Bugis (#78), Ang Mo Kio (#80) and Hougang (#83).

We could also share bizarrely interesting, or interestingly bizarre, search keywords such as “2151” (#132), “120611” (#180) and “t” (#201). But these will be another story altogether. Stay tuned!